Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1887-05-19
HONEY BY THE TON.
A FEW INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT
CALIFORNIA BEES.

A ''Bee Ranch" in an Out of the Way
Canon-Two Varieties of Honey Gather
ers-The Bee Keepers work-A Story
of Three Bears.
In California an apiary is always called q
''bee ranch,n and it is generally located in
some out of the way canon, where there is not
arabic soil enough to repay cultivation, but
where wild flowers grow in profusion. As
consequence the life of bee keeper is npt to
be a lonely one, although the location of his
home is, in almost every instance, picturesque
in the extreme. The majority of those
engaged in the business are men who have
come here for their health, and find in the
keeping of bees just that light out door occu-
patton which is most conducive TO the cure Of
many complaints.
Two kinds of bees are found here, the or
binary black variety and the italian. The
latter are for many reasons the more TO be
desired, and by an interesting process, too
long to be described here, the black bees are
being gradually halianized. The hives gen
erally used are Of two stories, each consisting
of box about eighteen inches square, with
dozen or so of frames occupying its interior.
These frames are intended to be filled with
combs. Those in the lower story are for the
brood, or rearing Of young bees. As it is de
sirable to lift these frames out occasionally,
it is necessary that the combs should be per-
fectiy straight. In order to make them so
curious process is resorted to. A machine
looking very much like the "crimper," seen
in laundries, is used, but its brass rollers, in
stead of being futed, have little projections
all over the surface shaped like the wax at
the bottom of the cells in honeycomb. A
thin sheet OF wax is passed between these
rollers and comes out on the other side en-
tirely covered with these indentations. This
sheet, which is called comb foundation, is
then fastened with little melted wax into
frame, and when all the frames are supplied
they are put in the hive. When a swarm of
bees leaves hive it is at once put into one
furnished with frames Of foundation and
Immediately goes to work on the prepared
wax. In a very short time 1t is in readiness
for storing honey and rearing brood.
The bee keeper examines the hives from
time to time, and as soon as the frames are
all filed with brood and honey he puts an
other box Just like it on top of the filed hive
The bees then pass into this and soon fill 70
also with honey. Watch is kept, and as socn
as tie combs are full, and the bees have Gov
cred the cells over with wax, the frames are
taken out carefully and carried to the honey
house close by.
Here is very peculiar machine, called an
extractor. 1t is a large sheet iron or wooden
tank, on the top of which is a crank and
some cog wheels. Inside is a square basket,
made of wire netting, which is fastened to a
pivot at the bottom of the tank, and to the
crank at the top. The bee keeper now takes
one Of the frames full Of honey, and, with a
queerly shaped knife, having a very thin
blade, he shaves off at one stroke all the cap
pings over the cells of the comb. This knife
is kept warm, so that only very little of the
wax is taken off. Four frames are thus
treated, and then they are put into the square
wire basket in the tank, one on each side,
with the uncapped cells on the outside. The
crank is then turned few times, and the
basket revolves very rapidly. All the honey
in the cells is thrown out into the tank by
centrifugal force, and is then drawn off into
barrels and cans. Nothing but the empty
cells is left, and the frame is then put back in
the hive for the bees to fill up again. Some
times they will do this in less than a week,
and when the bee keeper has from 60 to 100
hives, as is usually the case, it takes about all
his time to go from hive to hive and take the
honey from them. The amount of honey
gathered by a swarm in good season is sim
ply astonishing. 1t is not unusual to get 800
OF 400 pounds in a summer, and there are
cases where the yield has gone as high as GOO
pounds.
The bee keeper, however, does not get a
very high price for his honey. He is well
content if be receives four or five cents
pound. Some of the bee keerers use the little
wooden section boxes with which every one
is familiar, but when this is done not nearly
so much honey will be secured, though it will
sell for fully twice as much as the extracted.
There is one enemy the California bee
keeper has to guard against that his eastern
brother knows nothing about That is the
grizzly bear Bruin is very fond Of young
calves and colts, and thinks nothing of eating
two or three tender lambs by way of an
appetizer in the morning. Besides this, he
has very sweet tooth, and the amount of
honey and bees that he will eat for lunch
is surprising. A bear will make light of
demolishing half a dozen hives in a night
and devouring all their contents. A neighbor
of the writer's found one morning that during
the night bear had come down from the
mountains close by. All that was left of
four or five hives was a lot of chewed up
sticks hardly fit for kindling wood. He filled
large milk pan with some very tempting
honey, seasoned highly with strychnine, and
put it close up to the gap in the fence by
which the bear had entered. Next night the
bear returned with two companions. When
they reached the broken fence, there was the
honey all ready for them, and it did not take
them long TO dispose of it. But soon after
swallowing the delicacy they lost all interest
in honey and started on a search for water.
Next morning when the kind and thoughtful
bee keeper opened his door there lay three
enormous grizzlies near the watering trough,
stiff and cold in death.-San Francisco Cor.
New York Commercial Advertiser.